I was about to move on when a short bald man in a uniform burst out of one of the offices and collided with me. It was entirely his fault, and yet he swore and lashed out at me, the back of his hand catching me above the ear. I stepped backwards, laughing. So this was how it was going to be! My laughter had no effect on him. In fact, I wasn’t even sure he noticed it. He had hit me without looking, without so much as checking his stride, and I’d been unable to ward off the blow. My cloak was made out of a heavy, hard-wearing material, some kind of hemp or jute, and the slits for my arms were difficult to find in a hurry. Had this been done deliberately, to keep White People powerless? I also wondered about my overall reaction. If the man had been a little less distracted, would he have thought my behaviour untypical?
I had only been living as one of the White People for a few hours, but I could already see that I was lacking certain vital qualities and skills. In shedding the superfluous, they had reduced themselves — or been reduced — to some sort of residue or essence; their so-called emptiness was actually a distillation, a form of knowledge. I wasn’t acquainted with the labyrinth of pathways and alleys through which they moved with such apparent freedom and authority, and if I didn’t find out about them soon I would become too visible, I would begin to arouse suspicion. My only option was to attach myself to a group of genuine White People, and quickly; I needed to hide among them, learn from them. If I really wanted to step outside the system, if I wanted to be rid of it entirely, I would have to forget myself — everything I was, or ever had been. I would have to enter the fold in reality that the White People inhabited. Eyes of the dullest porcelain, and a black hole for a mouth. Words all swallowed up. Head like a guest-house for the wind. That sentence of Pat Dunne’s had stayed with me, but it had never been more relevant: You have to act like them, or you don’t survive.
I didn’t sleep at all, and yet afterwards, when I thought back to that first night, I came across blank patches, like periods of unconsciousness, where I couldn’t recall what I had done. There seemed to be no clear sequence of streets, just this place, and then another place, and then another place again, as if, like a giant, I had moved by leaps and bounds. Sometimes a place occurred twice — the river, the museum — which led me to suspect that I was clinging to small pockets of familiarity. Or else I had found myself in one of the circles of hell, perhaps, condemned to repeat myself…
By first light I was walking in a poor part of town, north-east of the station. A council estate had been built out there, among the weeds and puddles. White gulls whirled, screeching, above mounds of rubbish. I had been thinking it might be wise to hide myself away before too long, but then a small boy emerged from between two walls of pebble-dash and as I watched him turn in my direction I had a flash of inspiration and fell into step with him.
‘Morning,’ I said.
The boy stopped and stared. ‘You can talk.’
‘You won’t tell anyone, will you?’
He weighed his decision, then shook his head. ‘No.’ He squinted up at me. ‘Can you say anything else?’
I noticed an old man cycling along the road towards us. ‘Not now.’
The man pedalled into the estate, leeks and sticks of celery poking out of the wicker basket lashed to his handlebars.
The boy was called Felix — an unusual name for a melancholic, I thought, though I chose not to comment on it — and he was on his way to the market to do some shopping for his mother. I asked if I could tag along. He didn’t see why not. He took me to a muddy expanse of wasteground where a number of vans stood about with their doors flung open. Traders in cheap leather jackets bent into the interiors, unloading endless brightly coloured streams of second-hand clothing. We moved on past stalls selling electronic goods, jewellery, shoes, kitchen equipment, old war medals, and even live birds in cages, arriving eventually at an area where one could buy fresh produce. While Felix queued out the front with all the women, I scavenged round the back. I came upon a box of badly bruised pears, several of which I was able to devour before the stall owner chased me away. A few minutes later I salvaged four tomatoes from a pile that had been dumped on the ground, and then, even better, I discovered a heap of unshelled peanuts and the wrinkled tail-end of a salami. I ate half of what I had found and stored the rest in the pocket of my cloak.
When Felix appeared again, he was loaded down with bags. He wondered if I’d be willing to help him carry them. Fortified by my rudimentary breakfast, I said I would. As we trudged back along the main road, he asked whether I had a name. People called me Wig, I said. I told him how it had come about. He nodded soberly and said he thought it was a good name, under the circumstances.
As we turned into the estate where he lived, I decided it was time to ask the question that had been on my mind for much of the night. Did he have any idea where I could find others like me? His forehead crumpled, and he walked more slowly, staring at his shoes. He was giving the matter serious consideration, as I had suspected he might. Under the flyover, he said at last. The one out by the kennels. He had seen some White People there. Or try the railway line, he said. Going north. At his front door, he asked if I wanted to come in and rest. There was only his mother, he said, and she always got up late.
‘Better not.’ I put a hand on his shoulder. ‘I enjoyed meeting you, though.’
‘Thanks for helping, Wig,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t have done it by myself.’
‘If anybody asks about me, don’t say a word. All right?’
He tucked his lips into his mouth, then nodded.
‘It’s our secret,’ I said. ‘Promise?’
‘I promise.’
I ruffled his hair and told him to look after himself, then I turned and walked back to the pavement.
When I reached the corner of the street I heard a voice call out. Glancing round, I could see a face showing above the dark wooden fencing. He must have climbed on to a dustbin. I waved to him, and he waved back, his hand moving so fast that it became a blur.
Felix.
I don’t know how I got through that day. I was so tired that I kept tripping over and though I’d stuffed bits of newspaper into the backs of my boots so they would fit a little better I already had blisters on both heels. Taking the advice I had been given, I followed the main branch of the railway line out to the north end of town — to no avail. The flyover didn’t yield anything either, only a torn, stained mattress and a circle of black ashes, the remains of someone’s fire. Every time I saw white, my heart jumped, but it was always just a man opening a newspaper or a woman hanging out a sheet, and afterwards fatigue would reclaim me. Each new false alarm took something out of me, depleting me still further.
Towards the middle of the afternoon I was on a railway bridge out near the unfinished housing estate when I happened to stop and lean on the parapet. I was only going to pause for a while before I continued on my way, but there below me, seated on a grass embankment, were three of the people I had been looking for — two men and a woman. Were they the same three that I had seen washing in the river? I had to assume so. In which case I was doubly relieved they hadn’t noticed me that night. After all, this was my chance, and it seemed unlikely I would get another. The authorities would know of my disappearance by now — Clarise would have to report me, if only to protect herself — though I had spent a good part of the day trying to keep that thought from entering my head, since it would have done nothing for my rapidly dwindling morale.